Nov 6 2014
Carpathian Gold Inc. is providing the following update on its RDM gold mine in Brazil. The RDM Mine is 100% owned by the Corporation's wholly-owned subsidiary, Mineração Riacho dos Machados Ltda.
Since March of this year, following re-instatement of the Autorização Provisória de Operação ("APO" or provisional operating license), MRDM has been completing infrastructure construction at the site while gradually ramping up production as part of the ongoing commissioning and ramping up process.
Production Update
Total mine production for October as well as since mid-March is summarized as follows:
- In the month of October, 204,617 tonnes of ore were processed at an average grade of 1.23 g/t gold and at a recovery rate of 85.6%, resulting in the production of 6,903 oz. of gold, representing approximately 86% of planned production capacity of 8,000 oz./month;
- To the end of October of this year, MRDM has processed a total of 1,092,957 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 1.23 g/t gold and at an average recovery rate of 86.6%,producing 37,372 ounces gold; and
- As at the end of October, MRDM had shipped a total of 36,552 oz. of gold and 11,920 oz. of silver.
It is anticipated that monthly production figures will increase in the near term as the plant nears completion of the ramping up process. Management is also confident that it will be able to achieve the planned gold recovery rate of 90% once steady-state plant operations have been achieved.
As the RDM mine is still at the "ramping up" stage, we cannot provide cost per ounce data, as it would not constitute a reliable indicator of costs at the commercial production stage.
Process Plant
The process plant facility is almost completed save for final leach tank construction, with plant automation and equipment and power plant adjustments proceeding.
Mining
The RDM Mine is a conventional open pit operation of drill-blast-load-dump utilizing an owner-operated fleet and a mining contractor. The feasibility design pit is a single pit with LOM pit length of 1,800 metres. Mining activity began to ramp-up in mid-March with the bulk of ore mining activity occurring in the Central Pit zone. Run-of-mine (ROM) ore at RDM is currently defined with a cutoff grade of 0.63 g/t gold with ore greater than 0.32 g/t gold and less than 0.63 g/t gold stored in a stockpile. The following mining has occurred in this ramp-up phase:
- To the end of October, a total of 1,200,004 tonnes of ROM ore mined at an average grade of 1.19 g/t gold; and
- As at the end of October, stockpiled ore consisted of 909,521 tonnes at an average grade of 0.80 g/t gold which is segregated into high and low grade ore classes.